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In recent news, Apple unexpectedly orders Coinbase to remove its crypto collectible game ‘War Riders’ from the iOS App Store. This is not the first time when Apple has done something against crypto related app. In the past, Apple has taken action against apps that fail to abide by the App Store regulations.

The news came into light in the month of August of 2018 when Apple suddenly asked Coinbase to remove the app. The reason behind this abrupt order wasn’t revealed clearly but people are suspecting that the app must have violated some terms and conditions of App Store.

The game was featured briefly on the Coinbase app before it disappeared suddenly. The ‘soon-to-be-released’ app was developed by the company Cartified Inc.

What was the App?

As soon as the ‘War Riders’ app was added to the Coinbase iOS app, it started the speculations for controversies. The game runs on ERC-20 token which is also called ‘Benzene’ or BZN in the game. This token is algorithmically generated by the game environment using caches.

The company that developed this game said that the game has over 1,180,000 vehicles in the game out of which 30,000 are premium vehicles. Cartified also said that these premiums vehicles are currently selling.

The gamers are attracted to the game’s same old, same old post-apocalypse scenarios which most of the games have. The CEO also said, “These vehicles will also be modernized and will not be from the 70s like it is in the most post-apocalyptic games.”

The game allowed players to go around the ‘apocalyptic world’ and built armies of vehicles. These vehicles were represented by tokens known as NFTs or non-fungible tokens.

What went wrong?

So far everything seemed alright but it wasn’t in reality. Apple did not state any specific reason for removing the app but some say that NFT was one of the biggest reasons. However, critics beg to differ and say that Apple’s terms and conditions do not state that NFT specifically is a violation.

Coinbase Official said, “Quick heads up – we will be removing from the iOS version as we’re not able to highlight dApps that facilitate purchase of digital goods.”

However, the app is still available for Android users but will not be available for iOS devices. The reason being Apple’s complex relation with crypto space. Before removing ‘War Riders’ from the App Store, Apple had removed another crypto app known as Cryptokitties. Cryptokitties was a famous dApp that allowed users to buy and breed digital cats.

Officials say that ‘lack of interest’ was not the reason why the app was removed and also added that they have a strong user base that is continuously growing. This clears the doubt about lack of interest in the game.

However, the majority of sources say that the reason behind this abrupt removal of the app by Apple was the use of NFT and BZN in the app.

BZN will be more of a traditional cryptocurrency for the gamers. BZN can be used outside the game as well. The users will have to use their vehicles to take the BZN safely back to their garage as other players are allowed to steal it on the way.

These two tokens have been assumed to be the cause of the abrupt removal of the app.

Apple and its crypto App History

The reason why the App Store has been doubling the revenue as compared to the Play Store is the trust of users that the company has earned since the beginning. The statistics show the uprising growth of Apple and one of the reasons is its priority of user safety.

Apple always had a complex relationship with the crypto space. It was only earlier this year when Apple had banned any additional use of analytics for marketing or advertising purposes. They are taking every step to protect the user data and has been removing any app that fails to follow the same.

Apple strictly prohibits any buying, selling or trading of cryptocurrencies within the apps. This prohibition is mention under the ‘In-app purchases’ section in the App Store. The company has always been strict with its guidelines to cryptomining apps in the past and will continue the same way in the future. They have also stopped encouraging any iOS app development that uses cryptocurrencies.

The governments all around the world are standing up against cryptocurrencies and for big companies like Apple, its only natural to do so. Nevertheless, Google is still allowing the users to play ‘War Riders’ on the Android devices.

If you found this interesting, keep reading more from our blogs. Or contact us at Appinventiv for any app development related queries.

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